Herzogenaurach, Germany
Benisch Architekten’s new adidas Arena forms a distinctive landmark on the adidas World of Sports campus in Herzogenaurach.
Because of its implementation of up-to-date energy-efficiency standards and extensive use of
recyclable materials, the building won a recent 2021 Green Good Design® Award as well as a 2021 International Architecture Award from The
European Centre for Architecture Art Design and Urban Studies and The Chicago Athenaeum.
The new office and reception building marks the campus’s main entrance, welcoming visitors to
the adidas group’s World of Sports headquarters and lending it a strong visual identity.
The Arena’s architecture is both functional and expressive, its sculptural shape emphasizing the
passion for sports that adidas represents.
A floor area of 52,000 square meters provides nearly 2,000 employees with a modern and sustainable workspace organized on flexible, organic principles.
The architectural idea behind the Arena building is predicated on a finely balanced interplay between transparency, landscape, and a modern concept of work based on communication and interaction across professional fields as well as responsiveness to future developments.
The result is a striking landmark formed by an abstract volume housing three workspace floors that hovers above a modeled landscape.
This sculpted hill accommodates the building’s entrance area, part of which is publicly accessible, leading to a vast bright atrium suitable for a variety of events.
The heart of the Arena building is the dramatic floating staircase in the atrium.
Rising through the bright and spacious light well, it takes employees up to the three-story workspace section and offers exciting views into the atrium, across the open-air level out over the campus, and up to the office floors.
A central “main street” links these three levels both vertically and horizontally to create a space akin to a lively marketplace suspended in mid-air.
On each floor, the “main street” is adjoined by six kitchen hubs representing six “key cities” characterized by distinctive materials, colors, and types of furnishing to form individual addresses within the building.
Work areas alternate with areas for formal and informal meetings and recreational zones.
They are organized as variegated clusters around light wells of different sizes optimized to supply ample natural light.
The facade is equipped with a specially developed sun control and shading system adapted to the orientation of each facade.
The fixed external shading system optimizes the interplay between maximum light transmittance, including in winter, and minimum heat gain.
The architectural design, which represented a significant challenge in terms of structural engineering, was realized using a steel-and-concrete construction and a system of slanted steel and concrete supports.
Project: Adidas World of Sports Arena
Architects: Behnisch Architekten
Design Team: Stefan Behnisch, Stefan Rappold, Conny Wust, Nadine Hoss, Carina Steidele, Dennis Wirth, Nevyana Tomeva, Martin Buchall, Jorge Carvajal, Laetitia Pierlot, Saori Yamane, Adriana Potlog, Ioana Fagarasan, Anna-Lena Wörn, Abdalrahman Alshorafa, Arlette Haker, Hamdy Saflo, Matteo Cavalli, Mahboubeh Shoeybi, Andreas Peyker, and Nadine Waldmann
Landscape Architects: LOLA Landscape Architects
Structural Engineers: Werner Sobek Stuttgart GmbH
Client: adidas AG
Photographers: David Matthiessen and Marc Pfeiffer
